How To Understand Your Readability Score

We all know that good content can help to boost your business’s SEO, increase awareness of and trust in your brand, and help you reach and connect with customers, both new and old.

But what makes good content? It’s anything that provides value to your intended audience; it comes in many forms and will be a smart, thoughtful piece of marketing that answers questions, provides insights, and entertains.

However, one of the things that content creators have to pay particular attention to is readability. This is certainly true when creating blog posts or other pieces of written content.

Have you ever started to read something and you get halfway through and realize you haven’t absorbed any of it? Have you ever had to read the same sentence two or three times over to try and make sense of it? Have you ever read something, where the language used, is too unnecessarily academic, convoluted or complicated for you to grasp the meaning?

All of the above could be examples of where the content creator hasn’t paid proper attention to the readability of the piece, and this can cause problems by isolating and frustrating your audience rather than engaging and impressing them.

A readability score can help you ascertain whether your writing falls into that category and is at risk of irritating your reader or putting them off. The rating reflects the quality of your writing. If it is high, it means that people should be able to understand what you are saying without effort. A low score means that they will have to work hard to do so which could mean your piece is draining to read due to overly complex language or poorly constructed sentences.

So how can you improve your readability score? Here are some useful tips:

Keep sentences short and language simple

The best way to improve readability is to shorten sentences and remove any complex language. Of course, there is a place for more academic or in-depth pieces of content, but in general, keeping things straightforward and simple will mean your article reads effortlessly.

Break up paragraphs

Huge chunks of text can immediately appear overwhelming to your reader. Try to break down your paragraphs into easily digestible chunks to make it easier for someone to read and take in your points.

Write clearly and try to break down more complicated topics

Even the most difficult subjects can be simplified to communicate them to your reader. Try to always think about it from the reader’s point of view. While you may be an expert on the subject, if someone with much less or no knowledge was reading your piece, would they understand it? Trying to see things from your readers perspective can be invaluable.

The ability to write clearly and concisely without dumbing down your topic is a skill, but one that is important if you want to communicate well with your readers. So the next time you are writing a piece of content for your business, try to keep its readability in mind to ensure that it is the very best it can be.